Stuffed Yellow Squash

Well, it’s over a week later and I’m still working on Thanksgiving/Holiday meal posts. It was a rather large meal. 😮 This is a wonderful yellow squash dish that you don’t have to wait for Thanksgiving or the Holidays to make. Your family will like it. 🙂

Every family has Holiday traditions and I guess this squash dish is mine. I have been eating this dish since I can remember, although (not surprisingly) I have modified it from the original. When I was a young boy my Dad’s parents moved to Corsicana. My grandfather was a pathologist and had retired from Madison General Hospital where he had worked. Dad had finished his tour of duty with the US Air Farce at Lackland AFB in San Antonio recently moved the family to Corsicana, Texas (home of the Collins Street Bakery – the place with the one fruitcake that has been sent around the world countless times 😉 ). They had an opening at the hospital for a part time pathologist so Dad let my grandfather know. Given Texas had no income tax, the weather was considerably warmer in Texas than Wisconsin and my grandfather could play with his namesake grandson (Lester, III), he took the job and my grandparents moved to Corsicana.

Now, Grandma loved to cook and was quite a cook. We split the Holidays with Grandma fixing Thanksgiving dinner and Mom doing Christmas. We always looked forward to Thanksgiving with Grandma. She made great banana bread, always had a juicy turkey with stuffing in the bird, as well as dressing on the side. She made her own cranberry relish, hot yeast rolls, deviled eggs, with fresh apple and pumpkin pies and homemade ice cream for dessert. She also made this yellow squash recipe and I loved it. I never cared much for yellow squash because everywhere you went you got baked squash. You know, that mushy mess that’s a large glop of off color yellow on your plate. This squash, however, was different. It was nicely seasoned, had sautéed diced onions mixed in, had been par cooked, stuffed and baked with breadcrumbs on top. It was delicious and I looked forward to having it every year.

Given I was rather a rambunctious child, I wasn’t allowed in the kitchen during kitchen prep or cooking. I was relegated to the outside so I wouldn’t get in everyone’s way, steal food, or break things. As such, my Grandma never did teach me how to cook, although she did teach me about roses and taught me how to whistle and do bird calls. It was years later after I had grown that I decided to learn how to make this dish. By that time, Grandma didn’t do much cooking and her health had declined. Nevertheless, she had shown my Mom how to make this dish and my Mom showed me. As such, every Thanksgiving when I make this dish it reminds me of my Mom and Grandma, two of the finest women I have ever known in my life. We hope you try it and like it, too. 🙂

Ingredients

6 – 7 yellow squash

3 slices bacon

1/2 cup shallots, diced

1 clove garlic, minced

1/3 cup breadcrumbs (preferably from fresh bread)

1 tsp fresh thyme, minced

2 tsp fresh sage, finely chopped

salt and freshly ground white pepper, to taste

Instruction

Once again, you have to forgive me for the lack of step-by-step photos but Thanksgiving was hoppin.

Par cook the yellow squash, whole, and allow to cool. Split the squash in half from stem to flower end and seed. Lightly butter 8 of the squash halves inside and out. Set aside. Dice the remainder of the yellow squash.

What a great side for a Thanksgiving feast, especially with the family history that comes with it, Richard. I mean, it even has bacon in it! You just can’t get any better. But you needn’t apologize for a supposed lack of photos. It is hard enough to get Thanksgiving dinner on the table without having to worry about step-by-step photos. 😉

Thanks, John. Given I really was a terror growing up, I don’t have a lot of family cooking stories. I also did not get interested in cooking until I was 16 or so and then seriously got interested around 18 – 19 when I started cooking professionally. I do have my mom’s cookbook which is full of newspaper clippings and recipes from friends. Surprisingly, this recipe is not in it. I probably should start doing one recipe from her cookbook a month. Sometime soon, I’m going to make her pfeffernusse and springerle cookies. She made them for us every Christmas. Before she passed, she gave me a few wooden springerle molds. I guess it’s high time I used them. 🙂

We love stuffed squash, and I can imagine the salty bacon would pair really well with a mellow squash. We are planning to experiment stuffing some Italian-style here soon with ricotta and a meat sauce. Hopefully it will turn out good enough to post!

This squash dish is really nice and you are correct about the bacon pairing well with the squash. Look forward to reading the ricotta post. We’ve made it before and it is good. The trick is to leave it undisturbed.

Hi Richard, I really appreciate your story behind this dish. So many folks have stories of their Thanksgiving feasts (but rarely) do they talk about the sides (and not the turkey!) it appeals to me as I’m always looking for new ways to use our veg. By hide I mean (present them) in a way that my sweetheart won’t be suspicious, (he’s never in a million years eat -just squash) for dinner. I dare say I could fool him with this dish.

Thanks, Alice. I love doing this dish with little summer crook necked squash, which should be in season down under right now. The shell is perfect for stuffing as a side, because it is a smaller squash. You can par cook these by boiling or by zapping in a microwave. I’m not a fan of microwave ovens but they do par cook veggies perfectly. With the breadcrumbs and bacon, you sweetheart may rethink eating just squash. 😉 My Grandma got 3 boys to eat this every Thanksgiving and my 5 children loved it.

Hi, Stefan. Thanks for the nice compliment. Too bad you can’t get yellow squash in NL. It has a milder flavor that I actually prefer. You can do this with zucchini but it is a large side. What you could do, and I have done in the past just not with this recipe, is cut the zucchini into 1 to 1-1/2 inch sections. Using a paring knife, cut around the seeds and remove them leaving you with a 1 to 1-1/2 inch cylinder. Fill the cylinder with the stuffing, oil, place on parchment paper and bake in your oven at 325 – 350F until done. Serve 2 on a plate. This is a smaller side of zucchini and makes a beautiful presentation. 🙂

Thanks for the suggestion Richard, that would indeed look great! The yellow squash and “zucchini squash” I remember seeing in the produce section of US supermarkets were of a similar size (and also similar to the zucchini we get here). There are however also very small zucchini (4 inches long and less than an inch thick) that have more flavor.

Hi, Connie. Thanks for posting a comment. I know Dad never would but I’m glad he looks at the blog every now and then. Everyone loves this dish, including Dad when I omit the bacon and salt for him. 😉 The pig was really a wonderful dish, just a little to large for the oven. 😮 New Year’s Eve was great as we spent it with my friend, John, as it was his 60th B-Day and we threw him a taco bar birthday party. Food was great, as was the company. Hope you and John are doing well. Try to keep Dad out of trouble. I know it’s hard but…